Palaeographic Chart of the Philippine Islands

Compared by
Don Pedro Alejandro Paterno

Paterno's Cuadro Paleografico

This is an example of the kind of charts that were assembled in the
late 1800s. It shows various samples of the baybayin from earlier
sources. The Tagalog (en general) is from Pedro Chirino's Relación
de las islas Filipinas of 1604. The other samples from Luzon were
collected by Sinibaldo de Mas from handwritten sources and published
in Informe sobre el estado de las islas Filipinas en 1842 (1843).
(See Baybayin Styles.)

These samples of baybayin writing are listed here under the heading
Alfabeto de..., implying that each sample is a distinct alphabet
belonging to a certain region or people. The chart further reinforces
this misinterpretation by comparing the baybayin samples to scripts
from nearby islands and other totally unrelated alphabets such as
Hebrew and Arabic. Unfortunately, later historians reproduced these
charts in their books without questioning the original source of each
sample. The early Spanish writers are unanimous in reporting that
there was only one "alphabet" in the Philippines when they
arrived. (See Baybayin
Variants.)

This chart is from the book Los itas, por Pedro Alejandro Paterno
(1890) p.440. It is probably the most copied source for examples of
supposedly regional Philippine "alphabets".